Abstract

The multilayer advanced high-performance bus (ML-AHB) busmtrix employs slave-side arbitration. Slave-side arbitration is different from master-side arbitration in terms of request and grant signals since, in the former, the master merely starts a burst transaction and waits for the slave response to proceed to the next transfer.

Therefore, in the former, the unit of arbitration can be a transaction or a transfer. However, the ML-AHB busmatrix of ARM offers only transfer-based fixed-priority and round-robin arbitration schemes.

In this paper, the design a flexible arbiter for the ML-AHB busmatrix to support three priority policies-fixed priority, round robin, and dynamic priority-and three data multiplexing modes-transfer, transaction, and desired transfer length.

In total, there are nine possible arbitration schemes. The proposed arbiter, which is self-motivated (SM), selects one of the nine possible arbitration schemes based upon the priority-level notifications and the desired transfer length from the masters so that arbitration leads to the maximum performance.

In this project, a flexible arbiter based on the SM arbitration scheme for the ML-AHB busmatrix will be designed and also arbiter should supports three priority policies-fixed priority, round-robin, and dynamic priority-and three approaches to data multiplexing- transfer, transaction, and desired transfer length;

in other words, there are nine possible arbitration schemes. In addition, the SM arbiter design should selects one of the nine possible arbitration schemes based on the priority-level notifications and the desired transfer length from the masters to allow the arbitration to lead to the maximum performance